[Vision2020] Town Crier IV: Idaho Needs Real Education Reform

[Henry D. "Hank" Johnston]

Hi All -

In case you didn't see it in yesterday's Daily News, here is my Town Crier
column.

Enjoy - feedback always appreciated.

Kindly -
Henry

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*IDAHO NEEDS REAL EDUCATION REFORM*

HENRY D. JOHNSTON

Town Crier V

October 3, 2012



When Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna first ran for the office
10 years ago, he did it on a platform of "running schools like a business."
While that catch-phrase sounded good as a stump speech, the people of Idaho
overwhelmingly (to the tune of nearly 30,000 votes) rejected his vision for
Idaho's education system.


Fast forward to 2006, Luna runs again on a revised platform, toning down
the business rhetoric and gets elected. He serves a rather quiet four year
term, maintaining the status quo and is re-elected in 2010 with little
campaigning or discussion of his ideas. Many Idahoans thought he would
continue along the same mundane path of leading the state's education
system. They were wrong.


During the 2011 legislative session, Luna proposed some of the most
comprehensively insulting education reforms ever seen in modern times,
including the way teachers are hired, fired and paid, basing teacher pay on
student performance (primarily standardized test scores) and equipping
every high school student in Idaho with a laptop computer.


The legislation came out of the blue and was, by all accounts, rushed
through the Legislature by the Republican majority, paying little attention
to the objection of teachers, administrators, school boards and other
stakeholders. All of these changes were made while the Legislature was also
gutting K-12 education funding like the late Helen Chenoweth used to gut a
"nonendangered" salmon.


To the Legislature, Luna was a savior putting the evil teachers' union in
its place. To many teachers and administrators across the state it was a
huge slap in the face.


In November, Idaho voters will have the final say.


When you do your research and get into the nitty gritty of Luna's bills,
they really do look like a page from the Bain Capital playbook of putting
profits first and people last. They limit a teacher's rights when it comes
to hiring and firing, base merit pay on the results of students'
standardized achievement scores and graduation/dropout rates, and put a
higher emphasis on digital learning than classroom experience.


Now please don't get me wrong. I'm one of the most ardent supporters of
education reform. I just don't think that rote memorization for a
standardized test is the best way for every child to learn. Do I remember
anything from world history where the five-day format never changed on a
weekly basis - read, discuss, quiz, review and test?


No, but I do remember the analytical skills I learned in computer
electronics that focused on finding the problem through process of
elimination and the hands-

on accounting and business skills I learned as a member of the mock
business management and accounting club.


It's time to revitalize education in this country by letting teachers get
creative - to actually teach and get students to learn in the way best for
the student - instead of running them through like cattle. Modern education
is an environment where mediocrity is allowed as "passing" and students can
get to the high school level without knowing how to properly read and/or
write for their grade level, even though they've spent their entire life in
the public school system.

There has to be a middle ground somewhere between the all-business
profit-loss return-on-investment model Tom Luna is proposing and the feral
children of the co-op's "lets play with bubbles and imagine a world without
math" approach.


Excellent results in education come from proper leadership and policy. We
deal with posturing and the shaping of other policy based strictly on
ideology at all levels of government - usually with few positive results.
The process of educating our students should be left to the professionals,
not blind ideologues who think teachers, and education in general for that
matter, are nothing more than parasites sucking at the teat of the
taxpaying public.

Tom Luna's education reforms are not good policy, and I would urge you to
please vote no on Propositions 1, 2 and 3 this November.


*Henry D. Johnston* is the customer relations manager for Wysup Chrysler
Jeep Dodge in Pullman and lives in Moscow with his partner of six years,
Alex Irwin.
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